Right to Education quota shift: From exemption for minority schools to online admission

With all education department offices located in Pune, it has the highest number of non-school going children in state.

The Right to Education Act that came into effect in 2009 faced a lot of initial confusion as well as resistance to certain clauses, which led to major changes in implementation. Following a Supreme Court order, schools run by minority institutions that availed of no government grants were exempted from the rule of reserving 25 per cent seats for students of economically and socially weaker sections. A recent move was to make the process of filling the 25 per cent quota seats in schools in Pune, Mumbai and Panvel an online process. This was after parents of students from the poorer sections complained that they were prevented from entering schools even for admission.
Exempt category
The government had last academic year held that RTE is applicable to all schools including unaided minority schools. Management of several schools opposed this. Parents seeking admission for their children were affected by the conflict and the resultant confusion. On May 6, the Supreme Court made things clear with its directive that the RTE admission criteria would not apply to unaided minority schools as as it is “ultra vires” to the Constitution and will hurt rights of minorities.

Online RTE
Many parents of students seeking admission to schools availing of the 25 per cent quota were not allowed to enter the premises even to collect admission forms. Several schools, in their bid keep such students out of the admission process allegedly used “muscle power”. Their ploy was to declare later that they did not get any applications under 25 per cent quota. Putting a stop to that, an online admission process was started by Commissioner of Education S Chockalingam in Mumbai, Pune and Panvel for academic year 2014-15. In the coming year, it will be implemented in all municipal corporations in the state.

Uniform age
After facing problems owing to variance in age limits set by schools and educational boards for admission, a proposal for a uniform age for admission was sent by the education department to the education ministry for clearance. If passed, there will be an age regulation from pre-primary level onwards in schools across the state no matter which board or management they are affiliated to.

Online database
The education department has also started an ambitious project of making a database of students, teachers and managements for schools in the state. This will give students and teachers a mail id that can be used to access data about them no matter wherever they move in the state. This will make students’ transfer between schools, report cards, health cards etc online and move towards a paperless system.

Challenges in 2014

One of the major problems the government has to grapple with is exclusion of many deserving students from the RTE Act because of lack of awareness or documents. Many a time, students from the economically backward sections are not able to use the Act to get admitted to schools because their parents lack awareness about RTE or do not posses necessary documents.Setting up efficient help centres and a higher degree of awareness among people are what the administration had to ensure.

Another challenge is children in general who are still out of school, either dropouts or those who have not attended school at all. The RTE Act ensures free and compulsory education from 6 to 14 years of age. Pune has the highest number of children not attending school in the state. Ironically all education department offices are located in the city. A committee was set up to resolve the issue and suggest actions to be taken by October. It is yet to make any headway.

Improvement in quality of teaching is another challenge. Although the State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) trains teachers, much more needs to be done to improve general quality of school education, according to headmasters and principals of schools.

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Right to Education Act